Stealing with Style by Emyl Jenkins

Author:Emyl Jenkins
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2005-07-07T04:00:00+00:00

AFTER A YEAR’S stint at the New York Hilton following the September 11 tragedy, the Winter Antiques Show, the Armory Show to old-timers, had returned to its customary home and usual glamour. More proof that the antiques world survived and thrived, even in the worst of times. Once again things were back to normal. Magnificent arrangements of exotic lilies, orchids, proteas, delphiniums, and bells of Ireland flown in from around the world adorned the booths set up in the vast, cement-floored Armory space. The brilliant array of flowers equaled the beauty of the antiques on display. It really was a glorious sight.

The star of the show, though not the most expensive item, was a completely original circa 1730 to 1750 black lacquered Boston highboy recently discovered in Omaha, Nebraska. Early japanned highboys with exotic Asian designs have long been scarcer than hens’ teeth. Sometime in the later 1860s the highboy had traveled west with the son of an old Boston family who was looking to add more wealth to the family’s coffers. It had passed down from one family member to the other until a couple of years ago, when the last direct family descendant died and a nephew who inherited the piece called in a local dealer.

The lacquer on the highboy was in such excellent condition that the dealer first thought it was an old copy, only about 125 years old. But when she learned it had arrived in Omaha in 1867 or 1868, she began doing her homework and realized that it was the real thing. When word of the highboy leaked out, a shrewd New York dealer convinced the equally shrewd Omaha dealer to let him show the highboy at this premier show for a cut. No price was given on the laminated sheet citing the highboy’s provenance and history through the centuries. Rather, at the bottom of the page was written, “Only serious collectors should inquire further about this piece.” Rumor was that the asking price was a little over one million dollars.

The highboy set the tone for the show in quality, age, rarity, and price; rumor was that a great Windsor chair had actually sold at the preview party for six figures, and a Southern quilt, not too unlike the one Peter had rescued a few years back, had sold for somewhere around thirty-five thousand dollars.

And everyone had said the market would be dead.

Every year Lita Solis-Cohen wrote in MAD (the Maine Antique Digest, that Bible for all serious antiques lovers), that people attended the Winter Show not just for the antiques and a chance to see the array of quirky, obnoxious, and lovable dealers but also to hear the insider gossip. I didn’t pay much attention to the trade gossip; after all, Leemont was a long way from New York and the Main Line antiques world that stretched from Delaware up to Maine and Vermont. But I listened to it just for the fun of it all. And that night, things were anything but just “things.

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